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ah okay, missed that part when reading the original premise. so he's an auto out aside from the home run. that makes my decision easy. HOLY CRAP, home run guy is winning 2-to-1?!?!? Yeah, depends on the week for me. Some weeks I like the idea of the OBP guy, other weeks the homerun guy gets the nod. I am slightly surprised that the homerun guy is running away with the thing though. But I think the fact that the guy will have an OPS of 1.250 over the guy with a 1.000 OPS is a pretty good point. except that (1) a point of OBP is significantly more important than a point of SLG, and (2) it's not fair to the guy who gets on base every time, because he doesn't swing the bat once to actually have a SLG%. If you change your assumption and say that the guy gets on base by hitting a single every at bat, it's the same outcome (he's on first base after his turn at bat) but now his OPS is 2.000. You are right that walking is slightly underrated in OPS and singling is overrated in OPS. The differences between how they move runners up is important, but not important enough for their huge difference in slugging. (I actually think triples are also overrated in slugging because they are usually give you the same effects as a double does other than the obvious of the batter standing on 3rd, and a home run is underrated in slugging because the guaranteed run is so important). At the same time, I feel like my point about balanced scoring is a big factor that isn't being factored in. If you asked a great pitcher that if you knew absolutely for certain that the batter was going to get a home run sometime in the game, would you walk the player every time? Most great pitchers IMO would rather walk the person every time because they can work around that and strand him. I know in a small way that was the Braves pitchers philosophy for years to not let the big guys hurt you and to get everybody else out. I think the biggest effect of choosing the OBP player is that the team would score more runs against bad pitchers than the team with the home run guy, and less runs against good pitchers than the team with the home run guy. Considering a good team usually already scores enough runs to win against bad pitchers most of the time, I'd rather take the advantage against the best pitchers in the league. BTW, if you just told me that the homerun guy would have 162 HR's and get outs in every other at-bat, I'd take the OBP guy. I would assume then that the homerun guy piles up many of his homeruns against the bad pitchers of the world. It's the specific fact that he's guaranteed to do it every game that puts homerun guy over the top for me.

WGN cannot get the games back on the Superstation due to MLB rules limiting the number of games that a station like that can carry. Plus, having to pay the Cubs for the loss of the cable rights+naming rights would make it way too expensive for WGN even if it was allowed. MLB has no control over how many games are on WGN. The Cubs have reduced the number of games on WGN because of the Superstation tax. The only other team now which pays this tax is the Sox since TBS is no longer the flagshop station of the Atlanta Braves. The amount due each season is based on the number of games on WGN since they do show the games on the Superstation as well as the local only feed. Putting all of the games back on WGN would be quite pricey...yes, in the multimillions and is already in the millions as is. Besides, with the comments that Zell has made about the Superstation and it's programming (comments not fit for a family type board), I would bet within five years there won't be Cubs games on Superstation WGN...only the local feed. This mind you having nothing to do with the tax but what Zell thinks of the quality of programming. Thanks for the correction. WGN used to say it was due to MLB rules on their website, but now they just have a public relations paragraph about needing to compete with other channels. The Bulls answer of the NBA directly limiting the number of Bulls games is the only answer on there still intact. Any idea what direction Zell might take with the Superstation as far as its overall lineup?

Except with the 1.000 OBP, you have a .000 SLG. While with the 1.000 SLG, you have a .250 OBP (approximately).

WGN cannot get the games back on the Superstation due to MLB rules limiting the number of games that a station like that can carry. Plus, having to pay the Cubs for the loss of the cable rights+naming rights would make it way too expensive for WGN even if it was allowed.

Wait - Howry blew 4 saves compared to how many BS for Dempster??? 3 for Dempster. At the same time, that save opportunities stat for Howry is a really bad stat. Anytime he came in during the 7th or 8th inning with a lead, he was eligible for a blown save, but he couldn't get a save. 3 of his 4 blown saves last year were outside the 9th inning. So really he was 8 for 9 in true save opportunities.

It looks like it will be some combo of Lieber/Marshall again tomorrow just based upon the rotation so far. I haven't heard any official word though.

Looking at a couple of his other articles and as Tiger mentioned his signature at the end, it's clearly satire. It's hard to tell that from the article itself though which shows some poor writing. He's making fun of guys like Murray Chass.

Don't you think that's a bit steep? It's not like the guy was a shut-down CB even before he got involved in those fiascos. The last 8 games or so, he was very close to a shut down corner. He had really developed fast in that area to add to his dynamic kick return abilities. I still wouldn't trade that much for him though. Anybody trading for him is betting on that he'll play at all, which is a pretty risky bet.

Petrick is on the 40 man roster, so for him to be sent back to the minor leagues he has to use up one of his options. The rest are non-roster invitees, so they can just get assigned back to the minor league camp. OK, but why does he have to actually go to Iowa right now? Why can't he use an option and just go to minor league camp in sunny, warm AZ??? He does go to the minor league camp in AZ. The part about him going straight to Iowa was a joke.

Petrick is on the 40 man roster, so for him to be sent back to the minor leagues he has to use up one of his options. The rest are non-roster invitees, so they can just get assigned back to the minor league camp.

After all the hype, I would have expected Colvin and Ceda to stickaround a bit longer. They're good prospects. Neither of them are ready for the major leagues though and probably won't be for at least 1 more year.

it's an "unearned" trip to first base It's as much earned as a hit by pitch.

oh brother. I apolgize for that question. I understand heat of the game comments, and I should have seen how that question would be interpreted.

Anybody know how many free throws MSU has shot tonight?

I definitely want the guy that will hit 1 homerun a game for 2 big reasons. 1) Your team will never get shutout. Walking every at-bat is then contingent on your teammates. When your teammates are hitting well, that team may score 10. When they aren't, you might score 0 or 1. A guy who hits a homerun every single game will make it more likely that your team can get to 4-5 runs in each game, which is typically the magic number to win. Anyway you can get your team to be more consistent in their run production, even if the number of runs for the two different teams is the exact same at the end of the year, the consistent team will result in more wins. 2) The OPS for the guy who hits a homerun every game will be higher unless he averages more than 5 at-bats a game. Nobody averages anywhere close to that many at-bats, so his OPS will be a couple hundred points higher than the guy who walks every time.

You hadn't heard of this before? No :oops: That's been the plan all along that has generated some controversy. Zell wants to sell the stadium separately from the team specifically to the state. Then the new owners would have to sign a lease with the state in order to continue to use the stadium. Several of the potential owners have balked at buying the team without the stadium because the potential profit is much less without the potential revenues that owning the stadium brings.

Not a bad compromise -- depending of course how the "significant signage" looks. If they take down the ivy and cover the bricks with ads, I will publicly tar and feather their CEO in a public square. Don't worry too much about that. Taking down the ivy would be a lot harder to do than changing the name. The name isn't protected (although the marquee is) but the ivy is, and there's no way it's coming down.

This is awesome. I can't wait until he starts Hatteberg over Votto for this reason. And then after Dunn looks at too many third strikes, he'll replace him with Patterson, because while Patterson might strike out, he won't go down looking. Theriot and Fuld for Dunn. Sounds fair right? I dont care who plays short. Put EPatt there. Will it matter? It will considering you have no place to put Dunn! Let's just kill 2 birds with one stone: Dunn for SS :D

This is typical Marquis when his sinker is working. A lot of baserunners (5 in 3 innings) but since everything is on the ground, they are only going for singles and he also makes chances to get saved by a DP. Let's just hope he doesn't fall in love with that sinker and try to throw fastballs constantly like he did at times last year. He really needs to throw his breaking stuff to be somewhat consistent.

sacrifice flies are the reason. They don't count as an at-bat when calculating batting average, but they do count as a plate appearance when calculating OBP.

From the notes on Cubs.com from yesterday:

Thanks Bruce for the lineups. Good to see Ward getting a little more healthy. I'm assuming Cedeno is the backup plan for backup CF if the Cubs don't make a trade.

I can 100% guarantee you that's true.

His person is also saying that he has received no indication that the deal is close, and bb actually went on to say that it was his opinion that Roberts wouldn't be traded. Plus, today is the Orioles longest road trip, so most of the regulars didn't make the trip.

The note on Cubs.com said that Aramis is expected to play on Friday, so likely no Ramirez again for today's game.